"The Grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ" Revealed at Christmas

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.” (2 Corinthians 8:9; NASB)

by Eldon DeBoer

What matters is what the text of God's Word says. My prayer is that what I write will help you understand a little bit more about what it says, what it means and how it applies in your life.

2 Corinthians 8:9 is truly a wonderful Christmas verse. In the thoughts of God in eternity past He always knew that He would create us. He knew that we would fall into rebellion against Him. He knew what it would cost Himself to deliver us, His beloved ones, from our own rebellious, lost and sinful condition. He would have to become poor. He would have to set aside the wealth He has as God to be united with a body that He created—capture Himself in space—so that He could deliver us. The One who owns everything was born in a barn to a poor and despised mother who He Himself chose. Everything belongs to God. He owns everything. He is rich beyond our imaginations. There is so much about who He is and what He has that we have only begun to grasp a little bit of it. The God over all that exists decided to set aside His wealth so that He could serve us to the extent that He gave His own life for us on that cross of Calvary. (Does the omniscient God ever “decide” anything?) Now that's grace! Grace is God giving Himself to us so that we could enjoy Him forever. Grace is Christ Jesus becoming poor and suffering and dying in our place so that we “through His poverty, might become rich.” God wants to share some of His wealth with us. So He came to serve us on that first Christmas. We'll be walking on streets of gold! But there is so much more than that. We'll know the Lord Jesus like never before. We'll experience more of the wealth of who He is.

This grace of God was something that the Corinthians knew about. It is something every believer in Christ Jesus should know about. When we first believed in Jesus we knew very little about this awesome truth. God the Spirit revealed to us how much He loves us and we began to learn of His grace. The Spirit wants to keep on opening our eyes to more about Jesus Christ—who He is, what the promise of eternal life means and the significance of what He has done for us.

Some of the "grace of our Lord Jesus Christ" was revealed on that first Christmas and more was revealed and will be revealed in our future as believers in Christ.

May we continue to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). And, as we do grow in His grace and knowledge, we will find that we will have more of the spirit of giving like the Son of God has than we did before. Amen?